Alone, My Heart Finds No Reason To Exist, But With You, It Beats Again
by EmilyFuckingFitch
Summary: "We found her, Root." Set after 4x13.


"We found her, Root."

Those are the first words she hears over the phone, and she stops in her tracks.

It's been three months. Three months since she said her goodbye to Finch, three months since she lost faith in her own God. Three months since she's spoken to any of them.

Because she had to find Shaw. While they'd given up and resigned to the belief that Shaw was dead, Root didn't. Couldn't. She'd followed dead end after dead end, killed dozens of men and tortured countless more just to find a hint of where Shaw is. As the days went on, she'd realized that, by the end of it all, she was going to find Shaw dead, rather than alive.

That's what she'd anticipated. That's what she was steeling herself for. Not this. Not this hopefulness that had been smashed over and over in the past three months.

And yet, she feels bitter hope swell in her chest, threatens to overtake her, can taste it in the back of her mouth.

She tries to swallow it away.

"Is she…"

Root hesitates, afraid of what his answer will be.

"She's alive," Reese confirms.

She inhales sharply, feels a sense of lightness overtake her—an unfamiliar sense of relief that she hasn't felt in months. She feels tears well in her eyes as Reese's words repeat in her head like a heartbeat she hopes will stay alive this time. She tries to wipe the wetness on her cheeks away with the back of her hand.

"Root?"

Root lets out a small laugh, out of tentative joy, out of nervousness of what she'll find. Out of wishful hope that this won't be another dead end again.

"I'm coming," Root tells him, and disconnects the line.

She finds the nearest car and breaks into it, doesn't mind the cameras that can see her in plain sight, doesn't mind the car alarm, or the pedestrians looking at her warily.

Every second she wastes here is another second that she doesn't see Shaw alive and breathing.

She hot-wires the car, puts it into gear, and drives as fast as she can back to New York.

* * *

Medically induced coma, Finch tells her.

He's telling her more things, but she doesn't hear most of it, focusing her attention on Shaw's body on the cot, frail and small, her arm connected to the IV and heart monitor. The words that she had registered had angered her too much, had made her feel too helpless. Like how Samaritan had tortured Shaw, installed a chip in her brain, how Shaw's vision was a direct line for Samaritan and so was their location as long as Shaw was with them. And how the only way to disrupt their link was to give Shaw a high voltage shock that would short fuse it.

It worked, but they didn't know how long it would be for her to wake up. It could be hours, days. Months. Years.

"But she's alive," Finch says, breaking her out of her reverie.

Root doesn't turn to look at him, just nods, though her lip quivers, and she purses her lips to stop them.

Finch must see that Root struggling to hold herself together, because he says:

"I'll be with Reese working another number, Ms. Groves. I'll leave you with her."

Root hears footsteps walk away from her, and the door close from a distance. She takes this moment to step closer to Shaw's cot.

She bites her lip—hard enough to draw blood—when she sees what Shaw's been through. Sunken cheeks, pale skin. Finds faint bruises on her arms, faint knife wounds on her neck.

She stops inspecting, her vision becoming too blurry and wet.

Shaw's here, Root reminds herself. She's not dead. She's alive, and she's here, and she's breathing.

She takes a deep breath and exhales, moves to sit on the chair next to the cot, and patiently waits. If—no, when Shaw wakes, Root wants to be the first to know, the first to see her open her eyes.

For the next thirty nights, Root falls asleep to the sound of Shaw's heart monitor.

* * *

It's not until a month later that Shaw wakes.

Root doesn't notice it at first, too preoccupied on hacking through a security system to help Reese infiltrate their number's house. But then she hears a groan, sees movement in the corner of her eye, and immediately she puts her laptop on the table, and walks over to Shaw's cot, trying to stomp her incessant hope down.

There'd been false alarms in the past few days, small movements of Shaw's hand, moments when Root was so sure that today was the day that Shaw was going to wake. But every time, Shaw didn't, and the disappointment that followed worsened each time.

But today, however, what she finds in the cot is Shaw looking back her, her eyes half open and lazily blinking.

Shaw frowns.

"For Christ's sake, Root," Shaw croaks. "I'm not going to break. So stop looking at me like I am."

Her heart constricts. It's strange, to finally see Shaw awake and hear her voice, after all these months. Four months ago, Root didn't even know if Shaw was alive or dead. Three months ago, Root didn't know if she was ever going to find her. A month ago, Root didn't know if she would ever have Shaw back to the way she was.

And now, Shaw's alive, and she's talking, and she's herself and Root suddenly feels a tidal wave of emotions crash into her—all the emotions that she'd pent up inside because she couldn't let them overwhelm her and prevent her from completing her mission.

"I thought you were dead," Root confesses, says them like they've been tearing her insides apart for the past four months.

Shaw looks like she's about to make a snarky comment, but then her eyes soften, and instead, she says, "Well, I'm not."

Root shakes her head, because Shaw could've been. If Reese and Finch hadn't found her when they did. If Greer had moved her. If Samaritan had—

Root places her hand on Shaw's.

"I'm sorry."

Shaw scrunches her face in confusion.

"For what?"

"For not being able to save you." Root tightens her grip on Shaw's. "If our positions were reversed, you would've done it within a week."

"As much as I'd like to agree, Root, I don't think I would've been able to. They had me locked up in a place where even I didn't know where I was."

Root doesn't know if Shaw's telling the truth or if she's trying to placate her, but Root doesn't push. She doesn't want to argue with Shaw, not when she's just gotten her back. So instead, Root tells her, in a serious tone:

"Don't do anything that stupid again, Shaw."

Shaw shrugs, tries to give her a self-satisfied smirk. "Can't make any promises I can't keep."

Root shakes her head. "Shaw," Root pleads, her eyes begging. "Please."

Root can't lose her again. Not like Hanna. Not again.

Shaw must see it in Root's eyes, because after a moment Shaw concedes:

"Okay," she tells her.

The tension in her body melts away as Shaw's words wash over her like warm water.

"Okay," Root nods. She lets go of Shaw's hand and pulls the sheets up, moving to slip in the cot with Shaw.

"I didn't say you could share a bed with me," Shaw whines, but doesn't move to push her away.

"The chair makes my neck stiff," Root pouts as she pulls the sheets over her body. She looks at Shaw's face for a moment, sees a strange look of affection on her features, and out of sheer impulsiveness, decides to lay her head on Shaw's chest. She'd expected Shaw to push her away, but oddly, she doesn't. What Shaw does do, however, is wrap an arm around her waist. Root tenses out of surprise for a brief moment, before relaxing, molding her body to fit Shaw's.

"Do Finch and Reese know I'm awake?" Shaw asks.

Root hears her, but doesn't answer immediately. She breathes Shaw in, feels her steady pulse under her fingertips, the rise and fall of her chest, hears the even breath that she takes.

Shaw is alive. She's alive, and she's here, and she's warm underneath her hands, and her heart thumps in time with her own.

And right now, that's all that really matters. Everything else is just...white noise.

Root burrows herself into Shaw's neck.

"They can wait," she murmurs eventually.

Shaw hums, before nodding.

"They can wait," she agrees, and tightens her grip on Root's waist.

That night, Root falls asleep to the sound of Shaw's heartbeat.


End file.
